In the paintings of Noam Rappaport, the canvas assumes a character of its own, becoming an ingredient with weight equal to that of any other. In his first solo exhibition at White Columns, the artist gave stretcher bars—usually hidden completely—a similar identity, and did the same for a list of other structural bits and pieces, from nails and screws to wiring. The New York–based artist seems to aim for a kind of material transparency, through a practice that also constantly directs our attention to the modest and the everyday.

Rappaport’s constructions, then, have a rawness that reveals a sensitivity to the potential of the just-found and the jerry-rigged. But more important, his works derive from the realm of intuition and experimentation, in which colors and lines, shapes and textures are juxtaposed and combined with a seeming casualness that can veil a fine-tuned subtlety. Rappaport’s